FACTS AND FIGURES

Two recent letters to the editor, by Cheryl Johnson (“Taxed Twice,” Dec. 7) and R.T. McMullan (“My Money,” Dec. 9,) gave fallacious arguments against a previous letter by Keith Smith (“Estate Taxes,” Nov. 27). Johnson and McMullan claim that the estate tax is a second tax, after the income tax.

Perhaps it has not dawned on Johnson and McMullan that almost 100 percent of accumulated estate wealth over $7 million (Sen. John Edwards’ proposed exemption) has never been taxed. A succinct explanation can be found in Michael Kinsley’s article “Dead Wrong: The Estate Tax Doesn’t Double-Dip, and They Know It” which appeared in Slate magazine on April 6, 2001.

Such wealth is usually in stock, which is not taxed until sold. Ironically, much of large estate wealth is usually in stock, which, if sold by heirs, is filed on a stepped-up basis. Amounts below the stepped-up basis are never taxed.

To be double-taxed under Edwards’ plan, one must have accumulated an estate of over $7 million primarily through income on wages, which almost never happens. As Kinsley writes, “(No double taxation) is so obviously, overwhelmingly true that anyone with the slightest business or financial experience surely knows it.”

Other arguments may be credible, but the double taxation myth is not one. Johnson’s “taxed twice” argument fails, as does McMullan’s preconditions for a tax-free passage of his estate.

ANNE GRISWOLD

Winston-Salem.

Pack Up

Carol S. Cleary says in her Nov. 17 letter to the editor that the Israeli people had the right to Palestinian land because they were there in Biblical times (“Their Land”). The tribes of Israel were a nomadic people who crossed the Jordan into a land already occupied by a native people, much the same as the Jews leaving Europe did after World War II, and in Biblical times as in 1948, attacked without provocation. Displacing a people through murder and intimidation does not grant the right of ownership.

The only Jewish people who have the right to land and property are the Arab Jews who lived in Palestine before the end of the British Mandate in 1948. All others moving to the region should have to buy the land and not remove the native populace and take it by force, which is the Israeli way.

If Zionists think the treatment of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israelis isn’t persecution, look again. The very tactics used by the Israeli military are the same ones used by the Nazis against the European Jews.

Bombing and bulldozing housing, confiscation of property, isolation in camps, killing innocent people. Sound familiar?

If the Israelis have the right to return to a land they had in Biblical times, then perhaps Cleary won’t mind packing up and leaving her home so that the native Americans who lived there before can have their land back.

DAVID STRAUSSER

Winston-Salem.

Home Sweet Bunker

It is refreshing to read columns such as Maureen Dowd’s (“Disco Dick,” Dec. 15) in my local paper. I usually have to go searching far beyond the mainstream media for what is happening in President Bush’s Washington.

I would like to add a few items to her list of possibilities for Vice President Cheney’s “infrastructure improvements”:

The VP is installing a giant paper shredder to get rid of those pesky paper trails. Or maybe it’s an aquarium large enough for three white sharks with laser beams attached to their heads.

Or perhaps he’s installing a cryogenic chamber so he and his Hummer H2 can be thawed 100 years from now to play chicken with the little solar-powered cars.

It is important that those outside of Washington know of Bush administration dealings and appointments beyond what the newscasts can provide, tongue in cheek or not. I hope you will continue to print news critical of our government, especially with such recycled names as Poindexter, Abrams, Reich and Kissinger in the mix. I also hope Journal readers will remember what blind faith in leaders with too many secrets cost the American people in the past, and see critical reports as objective journalism, not as anti-American.

ANDREW L. BREWER

Winston-Salem.

Look Closer

In the Dec. 16 editorial “Tax Pledges,” the Journal accused Citizens for a Sound Economy of bullying “legislators into promising not to raise taxes.” Furthermore, the Journal accused the group of thievery. “In short, they are stealing from the broad base of North Carolina voters the right to be represented by people who stood for election, not by political operatives who stand on the sidelines.”

The term “operative” leads one to believe that CSE is involved in underhanded and sneaky activities. In reality, it is a group of ordinary citizens disgusted with government officials who recklessly spend a large percentage of citizens’ hard-earned paychecks.

Coincidentally, before I read the editorial, I calculated that 38.8 percent of my last paycheck went to taxes. I did not venture to include sales tax, city tax and vehicle tax. If runaway taxation does not slow down, we will be perilously close to sending half the money we make to careless politicians in $1,200 Armani suits.

You also assert, “Any legislator who signed the pledge in advance did so either out of ignorance or timidity.” It is possible, however, that these legislators may have understood the plight of the working American and agreed that the government has been a bit irresponsible. I’m sure CSE will thank the Journal for the free advertisement, and I thank it for bringing the group to my attention. And please, before you accuse anyone of being a bully, take a look at yourself.

GREGORY E. RANDALL

Kernersville.

When You Write

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LOAD-DATE: April 7, 2003